Utc Power

By BRIAN DOWLING, bdowling@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, December 22, 2012

United Technologies Corp. said Saturday it will sell UTC Power, its South Windsor fuel cell division, to ClearEdge Power in Oregon. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. UTC had previously said the unit was for sale. The deal comes as the company completes a reshuffling of its business portfolio, focusing on divisions related to aerospace and building systems. The company has wrapped up most of the business unit sales it had planned as part of the broad company realignment - announcing the sale of Pratt & Whitney Power Systems and Hamilton Sundstrand industrial businesses in recent weeks.

The South Korean company that bought fuel cell operations from the bankrupt ClearEdge Power said it plans to make South Windsor its headquarters and hire more than a hundred workers by the end of next year. Doosan Corporation, the Asian industrial giant that owns the Bobcat Company, picked up the Connecticut fuel cell operations for $32 million in a bankruptcy sale that closed July 18. The new firm, Doosan Fuel Cell America, will be run alongside its parent company's South Korea fuel cell firm, Fuel Cell Power, which specializes in smaller-sized equipment.

The new year started with a new president and a new business alignment at UTC Power, the division of United Technologies Corp. that is a big player in the still-small fuel cell industry. On Thursday, J. Michael McQuade, UTC's senior vice president for science and technology, took over as president, succeeding Jan van Dokkum, who will stay on to advise the company during the first quarter of 2009, a UTC spokesman said. McQuade, 53, will immediately oversee a major realignment of UTC Power, which remains primarily a research operation, generating little revenue or profits by UTC standards.

By BRIAN DOWLING, bdowling@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, April 29, 2014

A former South Windsor employee of ClearEdge Power has filed a class-action lawsuit against the company for failing to give required notice before it laid off all of its employees there last week. Rather than making the filing in advance of the layoffs, as required by law, ClearEdge Power gave notice to employees and state officials the day of the cuts. The letter explained that giving more notice would have ruined the company's efforts to secure new customers and investors and would have made it harder to collect payments from existing customers.

United Technologies Corp. has paid many former high-ranking government officials for their services, from governors to generals to a White House chief of staff. But Bill Clinton and company are working for free. For about a year, the former president's foundation has been helping the Hartford-based conglomerate's UTC Power division to stimulate and organize demand for buses powered by the company's fuel cell technology. The clean-energy buses use hydrogen instead of gasoline and give off water and heat instead of ozone-depleting gases.

The fuel cell-powered bus that will soon prowl Hartford's downtown streets is quiet, efficient and replaces toxic clouds of exhaust with pure water vapor. But for now, it will be the only one of its kind in New England -- mostly because it costs more than $2 million and its reliability is still being assessed. The new bus won't go into operation until the winter, but officials gathered at Union Station Thursday to announce the federally funded test project. But for UTC Power, the South Windsor company that makes the bus's fuel cell power plant, Connecticut's capital is thousands of miles from where it's focusing its sales effort.

By BRIAN DOWLING, bdowling@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, February 12, 2013

United Technologies Corp. expects to shave away 3,000 jobs in 2013 as part of restructuring efforts began in 2012, the company said in a regulatory filing. UTC, at the end of 2012, employed about 218,000 people worldwide at 4,000 locations in 71 countries, the company said. The cuts haven't been allocated to locations or specific business units, like Pratt & Whitney, UTC Aerospace Systems or Sikorsky, three of the state's largest employers. Its also unclear what ratio of the cuts will be through layoffs, early retirement or normal attrition.

UTC Power says its PureCell Model 400 fuel cell has received an industry certification that will help the United Technologies Corp. division increase sales in the stationary power market. The certification from the American National Standards Institute and CSA International "brings us many advantages and will help us accelerate deployment of our new model stationary fuel cell," said Neal Montany, who directs the stationary fuel cell business for UTC Power. The fuel cells deliver up to 400 kilowatt hours of power, as well as heat, for buildings.

The new president of Carrier Corp., Geraud Darnis, served most recently as president of the UTC Power group, which oversees the power generation lines in several United Technologies Corp. divisions. The name of his former group was incorrect in a story on Page E2 Friday.

They're preparing for the end of an era at Space Assembly Lab, deep inside UTC Power in South Windsor, as the last fuel cell is shipped off today to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to power NASA's space shuttle. Three space shuttle flights remain before NASA ends the program after about 30 years. "Without our fuel cells," says Mike Brown, vice president of government affairs for UTC Power, "we wouldn't have made it to the moon. Without our fuel cells, we wouldn't have had an international space station."

By BRIAN DOWLING, bdowling@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, March 15, 2013

UTC Power, a South Windsor manufacturer of fuel cell systems, has laid off employees as part of a 39 percent cut in the workforce of parent company ClearEdge Power. Police stationed at the business for security purposes said Friday that they were briefed by the company and that 170 of UTC Power's about 300 employees were laid off. There were no reports of incidents at midday, said police spokesman Sgt. Scott Custer. Jennifer Sager, a spokeswoman for ClearEdge Power, said the number of layoffs was lower than 170 but she declined to say by how many.

By BRIAN DOWLING, bdowling@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, February 12, 2013

United Technologies Corp. expects to shave away 3,000 jobs in 2013 as part of restructuring efforts began in 2012, the company said in a regulatory filing. UTC, at the end of 2012, employed about 218,000 people worldwide at 4,000 locations in 71 countries, the company said. The cuts haven't been allocated to locations or specific business units, like Pratt & Whitney, UTC Aerospace Systems or Sikorsky, three of the state's largest employers. Its also unclear what ratio of the cuts will be through layoffs, early retirement or normal attrition.

By BRIAN DOWLING, bdowling@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, December 22, 2012

United Technologies Corp. said Saturday it will sell UTC Power, its South Windsor fuel cell division, to ClearEdge Power in Oregon. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. UTC had previously said the unit was for sale. The deal comes as the company completes a reshuffling of its business portfolio, focusing on divisions related to aerospace and building systems. The company has wrapped up most of the business unit sales it had planned as part of the broad company realignment - announcing the sale of Pratt & Whitney Power Systems and Hamilton Sundstrand industrial businesses in recent weeks.

By BRIAN DOWLING bdowling@courant.co and The Hartford Courant, August 27, 2012

Two members of Connecticut's congressional delegation say they plan to introduce legislation to increase tax incentives for stationary fuel cells. "Fuel cell technology and energy can create jobs and enhance our state economy as well as free America from dependence on foreign oil — a huge win-win for everyone," U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said in a written statement released during his visit to FuelCell Energy's factory in Torrington last week. The measure would aid a market for stationary fuel cells that has yet to reach profitability.

By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN, kgosselin@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, July 26, 2012

United Technologies Corp. completed its acquisition of Goodrich Corp. Thursday in a $16.5 billion landmark deal that UTC's chief called transformational, but regulators ordered the company to sell a Goodrich business in West Hartford that employs 500 people. The deal brings more heft to Hartford-based UTC, by far the largest private employer in the state. It also brings uncertainty for the central Connecticut economy, not only at Goodrich Pump and Engine Control, formerly known as Chandler Evans, in West Hartford's Elmwood section.

By BRIAN DOWLING bdowling@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, June 26, 2012

Saint Francis Care has added fuel cell systems made by UTC Power at its main campus in Hartford's Asylum Hill, and at its Mount Sinai campus. The systems wil provide heating, cooling and power generation for the two sites, UTC Power, a unit of United Technologies, announced Tuesday, jointly with Saint Francis. Both systems are 400 kilowatts. The main campus system replaces an older, 200-Kw system. "With fuel cells on each campus, it allows for a reliable power source on-site," said Robert J. Falaguerra, Saint Francis's vice president of facilities, support services and construction.

UTC Power plans to produce an ethanol-powered fuel cell for a near-shore submarine now in development for the Spanish navy, the company announced Wednesday. It would be the first time the South Windsor-based company, a division of United Technologies Corp., produces a fuel cell for a submersible warship, said Henry DeRonck, the company's general manager for space and defense. In the past, UTC Power has made fuel cell systems for small, manned U.S. Navy research submersibles.

UTC Power said today its PureCell Model 400 fuel cell has received an industry certification that will help the United Technologies Corp. division increase its sales in the stationary power market. The certification from the American National Standards Institute and CSA International "brings us many advantages and will help us accelerate deployment of our new model stationary fuel cell," said Neal Montany, who directs the stationary fuel cell business for UTC Power. The fuel cells deliver up to 400 kilowatt hours of power, as well as heat, for buildings.

By KENNETH R. GOSSELIN, kgosselin@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, June 14, 2012

United Technologies Corp.'s chief financial officer told investors today that the Hartford-based company may sell more businesses and reiterated that UTC is considering "strategic alternatives" for its South Windsor-based UTC Power fuel cell business, which employs 450 in the state. Chief Financial Officer Gregory Hayes echoed comments last month made by UTC Chief Executive Officer Louis Chenevert about UTC Power. "I think Louis mentioned...we're looking at strategic alternatives around our fuel cell business and a couple of our other businesses as well," Hayes said, according to a Bloomberg News transcript.

Louis Chênevert, chief executive of United Technologies Corp., said Tuesday the Hartford-based company is considering "strategic options" for its UTC Power fuel cell business, which is headquartered in South Windsor and employs 450 in the state. "As you know, 2012 is a big year for transformation at UTC as we position the company for sustainable long-term growth," Chênevert told analysts at an investor conference in Florida, according to a Bloomberg transcript of his comments.